Venice floods through Venezia FC owner Joe Tacopina: 'These people are resilient. They are Venetians'

Writer AA Gill had this line about Venice being a "Dorian Gray city," a wonder of such overwhelming and timeless beauty that presumably a simulacrum must exist elsewhere, fading fast, losing its looks and turning ugly. "Somewhere up there in the world's attic, there's another place with the haggard, poxed and ravaged face of unspeakable evil," he wrote. "And I suspect it's Cardiff."

That's harsh on Cardiff, perhaps. Unfortunately, and here comes the inconvenient truth, whatever pact Venice made...